Posted
by
timothy
on Monday July 20, 2009 @07:44AM
from the you-call-that-backing-down-huh dept.

Barence writes "Internet Explorer 8 will no longer replace the default browser when a user selects the 'Use express settings' option during installation. Back in May, Mozilla and Opera accused Microsoft of force-feeding users Internet Explorer 8 through the Automatic Updates process. The object of their ire was the 'Use express settings' option which automatically sets Internet Explorer 8 as the default browser. The option was already ticked when Automatic Updates offered users the choice to upgrade their browser. 'We heard a lot of feedback from a lot of different people and groups and decided to make the user choice of the default browser even more explicit,' notes Microsoft in a blog post."

..and does it really matter? Anyone using Firefox or Opera will just click their Firefox/Opera icon like they usually do and be prompted to set it back. The rest of the world who don't know what Firefox and Opera are will continue to use IE.

I just right click pretty much anywhere and hit Firefox. Openbox is wonderful. I don't need to worry about pinning, plopping or any of that.;)[though I will admit that it took a minute or two of my life to get it setup right, but now that's out of the way...]

That isn't what Mozilla was complaining about. What Mozilla was complaining about was that IE8 was being delivered as an automatic update, then when it prompts the user whether to use express or custom settings the user of course would deem it just an update and would of course select express not realising it sets IE as the default.

The reason why it's acceptable that Firefox, Opera etc does this is because the user chose to download the browser. However, since MS pushed IE8 as a critical update through their automatic update service the user doesn't really have much choice. I accept the set as default using express if the user downloads IE8 as a separate download. But through an automatic update? No.

However, since MS pushed IE8 as a critical update through their automatic update service the user doesn't really have much choice

It's slightly more subtle than that. A forced upgrade from IE7 to IE8 doesn't seem much of an issue to me. It defaulting to changing itself to being the default browser doesn't rattle me too much either (though it does annoy me). What really gets to me is the fact that such a huge change in user preferences is "hidden" behind a "use express settings" tick box.

We're talking about delivery as a freaking system update. Not as a standalone. Also, "Default Browser" is "hidden in plain sight" if you will. It's next to last item on that list (dead last would be more noticeable), everything else in that list is a setting about Explorer itself, and the reasonable expectation is that a system update won't change your default software of choice.

Yes, IE8 is undoubtedly better than IE7, but what if IE7 wasn't your default browser beforehand?

Well, my reply was specifically to a comment that had conceded that point, so you have to take it in context

But, to whit, it's distasteful, for sure, but who is this going to affect? Pretty much only somebody who has no idea he's using Firefox and doesn't care, right? "Microsoft has no class", we knew that, but what's the actual harm - that users have to click "OK" when Firefox asks them again, right?

Gah! The entire point of this is that if you've installed an alternative browser, and set it as your default, it might be precisely because you *don't* trust everything coming out of Microsoft.

If I click Next through the Firefox setup it pisses me off because it added an icon to the desktop that I didn't want. Most users who click through the install probably find it makes FireFox more accessible. I've setup the shortcuts on my desktop myself and since I don't trust Mozilla to manage my destop, they shoul

I chose to update to Firefox 3.5, but I still wanted my IE8 as my default browser, but FF3.5 decided to take over the role. I wasn't asked, it just assumed. I don't see how this is any different. People you have to just stop bashing EVERYTHING Microsoft does. They do enough that is cause for alarm, but this just isn't one of them.

I've not used the FF3.5 installer, but the FF3 one had a checkbox in the installer for it. If they've dropped this for FF3.5, that's a Bad Thing IMO, but I don't think the design of the FF3.5 installer is something likely to gain much news coverage...

I think they did drop that, because I recently switched to IE8, but keep FF to make sure my web pages work with it. I remember having to tell it NOT to "ensure it was the default" and switch the default back to IE8.

"The reason why it's acceptable that Firefox, Opera etc does this is because the user chose to download the browser."

You're using a double standard here. I downloaded Google Chrome so I could go and try it out. Give it the benefit of the doubt, and so forth. I didn't need it to be my default browser any more than I needed Opera to be my default browser when I decided to try it out.

Certainly its easy to fix this. Most of the browsers will demand to be set as the default browser when you open them, but this is a conversation for the new and inexperienced users who don't know how to change that. If they did download Chrome (because Google is pushing chrome aggressively on every page) having it be the default browser could be a huge learning curve.

Now, I'm all for making users learn something, but eventually they end up calling you on the phone and demand you make it work right.

Ironically the media player wars were exactly about this. Real would become the default player for all sorts of formats, then Quicktime would, and so on. Someone must have learnt their lesson, because these days Real and Windows Media Player play nice, not too sure what Quicktime does (not installed it in some time).

If the media player vendors can learn, why not the browser? And yes, I don't buy the argument that anyone downloading Firefox is looking to make it his default browser. I download Opera and Chro

If the media player vendors can learn, why not the browser? And yes, I don't buy the argument that anyone downloading Firefox is looking to make it his default browser. I download Opera and Chrome onto new PCs too, I'd be pissed if I couldn't stop them from becoming my default.

You can stop them from becoming default. You uncheck a box.

Most browsers assume you want it to be the default when you install it. That's fine - they all seem to do it. This same behaviour is not fine, when it's merely applying a patch or upgrade.

If I upgrade from FF3 to FF3.5, and Opera is my default browser, Opera should remain my default browser. This is where Microsoft messed up.

Certainly its easy to fix this. Most of the browsers will demand to be set as the default browser when you open them, but this is a conversation for the new and inexperienced users who don't know how to change that. If they did download Chrome (because Google is pushing chrome aggressively on every page) having it be the default browser could be a huge learning curve.

Chrome never set itself to be the default browser, for me? I couldn't even get it to set itself to open.html files, when I wanted it to.

On the other hand, the vast majority of clueless ones, that had FF installed by someone else for example, will get back to IE8 without even realizing what happened, never able to go back to FF or anything else... This is just usual Microsoft monopoly abuse.

Of course the majority of those clueless people were only using FF because it was forced on them by the guy who installed it. If they don't notice the change it's because they just want to browse the web and don't care what they use. They probably did

IMO, the reason why it's unacceptable is because this is a freaking upgrade. The preference is already set to whichever browser the user favors, why should it be reset ? The existing choice should be left alone.

If it's a fresh installation, fine go ahead and toggle it by default, that's a good way to minimize user confusion ("I just installed Thingy 8, where the hell is it?"). If it's an upgrade, just replace those damned files and leave my settings the way they are.

If it's a fresh installation, fine go ahead and toggle it by default, that's a good way to minimize user confusion ("I just installed Thingy 8, where the hell is it?"). If it's an upgrade, just replace those damned files and leave my settings the way they are.

IE can't be a fresh installation (on XP or Vista), because everyone already has IE installed. If someone has IE7 installed but never uses it because their default browser is Firefox, and one day they decide they want to ditch Firefox and switch to IE8, they should be presented with the option to make IE8 their default browser, even though it's technically an upgrade.

However, until now, instead of asking whether you want to set IE as your default browser, the IE installer was instead asking "hey, do you wan

I would expect Mozilla also to agree with this, so I doubt that other poster's claim that FF3.5 presumes to make itself the default browser [slashdot.org] and would like to see that claim substantiated.

Well, a couple of days ago I upgraded my Firefox 2.x install to 3.5 (I don't use Windows that often) and it asked me if I wanted to make it the default browser. There was a checkbox (that was by default checked, but it may have been because my FF 2.x install was default? dunno) that I could have unselected

The difference is that Microsoft wasn't giving you an option. When you start IE 8 for the first time, if you choose "Express Setup" rather than "Custom," it makes IE the default--and not only does it not give you an option, it doesn't even tell you that it's going to make it default, either.

This update addresses this issue by including a "Make IE default browser" checkbox right under the "Express Setup" radio button. It's still checked by default (as it is for most browsers), but at least you can't say you

Since that post was written, they've decided to move the default browser page out of the express settings and require users to make a choice (unless IE is already their default browser). You'll notice that the user really does have to make a choice as no option is selected by default (the 'Next' button is disabled until they choose 'Yes' or 'No'). Here's the IE blog post with screenshots of the new behavior, since Slashdot didn't link to it directly: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2009/07/16/changes-to-ie8-s-first-run.aspx [msdn.com]

The problem is when I install an alternative browser to a non tech savvy's person's computer with it as the default and then automatic IE8 upgrade changes that setting, they may not notice. I am sad to admit that I know (older) people that honestly can't tell me what browser they are currently using and don't notice that suddenly the UI has changed.

Express settings are way more than browser, it is almost like a spyware install carefully hiding options.

If you express install IE 8, you are basically owned by their Live services. Search, homepage, "look up", "blog", "look on map". All are Microsoft properties which are horribly unpopular compared to other options.

It is way more than "default browser" setting. They really lost it this time since monopoly court is still watching them with EU guys are already on them.

Bundling a browser isn't illegal. What's illegal is to leverage your dominance in one market to prevent competition in a different market. Should Chrome OS ever become the dominant operating system, Google will of course have to pay careful attention to what they are doing to avoid breaking the law.

I imagine it keeps the library files around, since they're called by the "My Computer" and "Windows Explorer" features. I wonder though, what it does when you type an "http" URL in the "My Computer" browser bar. The current behavior is to simply grab IE's web libraries and turn your file browser into a web browser on the fly. Will it still do that? On my Mac when you enter "http" URLs into the file browser it opens the default web browser.

Really, really uninstall it? As in "uninstall" will delete all the IE files off of your storage device? Or just make the links disappear and keep most, if not all, of the files around so that Windows 7 can keep functioning?

Removing IE removes the application, local libraries and wizards. It does not remove the rendering libraries since they are considered a component of the operating system. They are not used exclusively by Internet Explorer so they should be kept around for the many other applications wh

You're opening yourself up to vulnerabilities in the browser control used by various programs like Winamp, RealPlayer etc. What's so bad about keeping IE up to date while you use your favorite browser? I bet millions of geeks do that with no problem.

Personally, I don't see why an application is setting itself as the default anyway. That should be left up to the user and the OS.

Originally it was done as a convenience, because most users didn't know how to set it in the OS settings, and it's somewhat cumbersome to do anyway. Many apps have a "set me as default" option.

Then Apple stupidly decided every application should expose this system-wide preference in the application's own preferences dialog, and the system-wide preference option should be removed entirely. Until other browser manufacturers caught up, this meant that in order to choose something other than Safari as your de

Apple just stole that bit of awesome usability from KDE (same place they got WebKit, for that matter,) where to get KDE apps to respect your choice of default browser, I recall having to set Opera (my browser of choice) as the default browser in Konqueror...

Ah, I was thinking there was somebody else doing the same thing, but I didn't realize Apple copied it from them. How disappointing.

Interestingly, this functionality on Mac OS was originally not part of the OS; it was provided by a third-party application called Internet Config. It became a de-facto standard, and most applications supported it, even though the OS itself offered no means of selecting default applications for anything. Apple started bundling Internet Config with Mac OS, then wrote their own [apple.com]

Good, I hate when installers and update utilities hide crap like that behind "express" or default settings. It's by no means a Microsoft-only trick though, the one I find most annoying is AIM's attempt to install all sorts of toolbar crap hidden behind a default checkbox so you have to uncheck two levels of things to stop it.
Even Mozilla does this to some extent to set itself as default, the only difference is anyone who's installed Mozilla probably actually WANTS it to be default, whereas with IE you'll have it rather you want it or not.

If you'd actually looked at the behavior, you'd see that it tells you the changes that will be made by the "Express Settings" option. You also must explicitly select that option before continuing - the dialog box's "Next" button is disabled until you choose Express or Custom settings. If you cancel the dialog, no settings are changed (meaning a lot of the new features in IE8 don't do anything, since it will use the settings from your old version). This is actually behavior that a lot of other installers sho

Actually, if you uninstall IE6/7/8 from a windows machine, automatic update will instantly (upon reboot) nag you to patch IE, even though its not installed. I think this is what parent is attempting to describe.His MS technet link states he only uses firefox.

Open the Control Panel, click "Programs and Features", then click "Turn Windows features on or off" in the sidebar on the left. Uncheck the box for "Internet Explorer 8" and click OK. You'll get a warning that removing IE could break things (but nothing you care about), then it'll ask you to reboot.

This does not remove IE's rendering engine (Trident/MSHTML), which is embedded in a bazillion other applications. There are still going to be security holes in that,

I was excited to try IE8. About 20 minutes after install and use I wasn't excited anymore. When I open a new tab my whole system slows down until its finished loading. I haven't looked at the CPU usage but i'd assume its pegging it for the render engine. Just a thought.

was excited to try IE8. About 20 minutes after install and use I wasn't excited anymore. When I open a new tab my whole system slows down until its finished loading. I haven't looked at the CPU usage but i'd assume its pegging it for the render engine. Just a thought.

It's most likely an addon which is causing your issue. You can run IE with no addons under Accessories->System Tools and confirm if that is the cause.

IE 8 handles each tab esentially as a sepatate IE process and some addons have real prob

And how many software writers for MP3 players, video players and graphic editors do the same thing when it comes to the long tick box of file extensions with most of them pre-ticked for you? At least with IE8 it's just one tick. I can think of a few software downloads that end up changing those familiar icons in Explorer to new programme icons.
It's no big deal - other than the Windows Updater always wanting to download the product which I haven't got on my system. Heck, what's the point of a monopoly if y

$10 says it still uploads to your machine every time you do a windows update but asks if you want to upgrade to IE8. Then, if you say no, it deletes it from the temp directory so you can upload it over and over until you are tired of the massive upload every time you do a windows update.

I don't see the big deal. If your windows VM wants to pump crap on its virtual drive let it. You have a 1T drive right? That is the cool thing about demoting jenky OS's to virtual machines. You can still use those outdated applications that haven't been fully replaced by a Linux/OSX version, not worry about it BSoD'ing your machine, and let it do all of it's BS updates it wants.

Mostly I agree with your post. I'd probably change the word evil for something with more substance. Also google works for profit as well. Anyway whatever one might think I'd say there's little doubt about one part of your post:

And then you just leave yourself with outdated and potentially bug-riddled software still installed on your machine. The better option would be to remove IE completely if you don't use it, but that's obviously not possible;)

All my machines went to IE8, even though I use Firefox as my browser of choice. Three reasons:

1: Security. You always want stuff that handles protentially hostile code as updated as possible. IE6 was made for the security threats of 2001. IE8 is made for far more current threats. Nothing is perfect, but IE has gotten a lot better as times have gone on. It has decent clickjacking protection, and seems to have had done a good job in standing up to NSS Labs's security tests.

2: Features. Auto-zapping all history and cache, and InPrivate browsing make it decently usable for those sites which require IE, or don't work well with Firefox.

3: Compatibility mode. There are some sites which still assume that everyone is going to be using IE6 for the forseeable future.

What the hell is this? A well structured, informative, and easily accessible statement of reasons why IE8 isn't rubbish? Clearly, you must be new here!

Kindly fall into line behind the blind F/OSS advocates to add your X to the list of people who think Microsoft is bad like the rest of the sheep without considering any alternate opinion! Your valid reasoning is not welcome here.

I am finding I'm running into many applications that use embedded IE to access the internet. Two off the top of my head are Steam and Darkfall Online - Steam of course uses it for its store, community pages, and in-game overlay's web browser, while Darkfall used a horribly implemented system for its journal, clan pages etc.

There are many others, and if you're using one which happens to stumble upon a compromised site you'd be better off with a newer IE, I'd think.

on wine AFAIK, you don't actually need to install IE to get steam working, there is some sort of hack to get it working using gecko! can this be done on windows? OFC if embedded IE uses IE6bugs then IE8 with compatibility mode is probably your only choice,

on wine AFAIK, you don't actually need to install IE to get steam working, there is some sort of hack to get it working using gecko! can this be done on windows?

There is a wrapper around Mozilla [www.iol.ie] that exposes it via the same COM interfaces that IE provides for hosting purposes. It would be possible to use that, and write a simple stub DLL that would be registered for CLSID_WebBrowser (MSHTML), but would instead instantiate CLSID_MozillaBrowser (the wrapper). Once done, all applications on the system should pick the new engine. It would be somewhat more complicated to do this for specific apps only, but still possible if you intercept DLL calls using something like D [microsoft.com]

You can actually do it on Windows. MSHTML.dll (the Trident rendering engine) is the default rendering engine on Windows, but it can be replaced - pretty sure it's just a registry key. Of course, anything that relies on it actually being Trident will break - Steam on Wine is good (although not perfect) but there are other, much more painful examples - but it's theoretically possible.

Wine implemented the Gecko "IE" feature because they needed *some* rendering engine, but they're working on a proper MSHTML imp

Heck, I have applications on my machine that use IE as their display engine (I guess). So when IE gets upgraded, my scanner software stops working. Finally HP addressed it with a patch so it'd use IE 8 but it was annoying for a bit that I couldn't use the HP software to change the default settings.

If you don't use IE do not upgrade it and it won't change your default browser

Or you can update it and just be sure to uncheck the "default browser" option. I realize that not everyone knows how to do that but its not one of the harder things to change.

I do find it funny though that all of these companies are essentially fighting over the users ignorant of how to do such things. I suppose it makes sense in a way, if you can snag the majority of these people, you'll have them for ages AND you'll never have to give them new features because they won't understand how to use them anyways. They'll be endlessly happy with whatever you throw at them as long as it doesn't complicate things any more for them and still lets them access the internet.

What I'm asking is this: What makes it a monopoly?
I guess Microsoft is the biggest OS retailer on computers, but what's a computer?

Biggest OS retailer on PCs. Ignoring the notion that a mac isn't a PC (are modern 'PCs' any closer to an IBM PC than a wintel mac?), MS do have the vast bulk of the market on desktop and laptop personal computers.
This is where they have a monopoly. The issue, in general, though, is less that they have the monopoly than that they abuse the fact they have one.

What Microsoft is doing wrong is abusing a monopoly in one market to gain dominance in another market. That is what is illegal. Just having a monopoly isn't illegal - it's the abuse of it that is wrong. Apple aren't abusing their monopoly on iPods to gain a market.

Except the iTunes Music Store isn't the only game and neither is the iPod. Amazon and Wal-mart have music stores that sell DRM-less music too. Also, the iPod isn't the only game in town either. There are tons of MP3 players in the market. Basically, Apple isn't stiffling competition in the Market, like Microsoft has done. It's not illegal to have a monopoly, it's illegal to abuse it.

Except iPods aren't in a monopoly situation. There is plenty of healthy competition in that market. The iPhone isn't either, nor is iTunes or the iTunes music store. In that scenario, it isn't illegal to leverage one product in order to make inroads in another market.

While neither a lover of Microsoft or Apple, calling Apple a monopoly is simply ludicrous. They hold about 3% of the global PC market (~7.7% in the US), 1% of the global cell phone market, and by some estimates about 23% of the Personal Digital Music Player market (Source: http://tinyurl.com/nm3m4n [tinyurl.com]). Certainly not a monopoly in any of the markets. Microsoft on the other hand has ~90% global market share.

As far as why Apple is not abusing monopoly laws with their iTunes software as it relates to the iPo

I guess Microsoft is the biggest OS retailer on computers, but what's a computer? Surely to count that we have to exclude 'computers' like Xboxes, PS3s, Wiis, and other such computers which run with different hardware and things?

Remember "monopoly" does not mean "highest marketshare." per se. From dictionary.com:

1) exclusive control of a commodity or service in a particular market, or a control that makes possible the manipulation of prices.